‘I know this whole market is based on the trust you put in me and I don’t take that lightly’: Trust, community and discourse in crypto-drug markets

Abstract

Pre-publication draft Reference: Lorenzo-Dus, N. & Di Cristofaro, M. (2018) 'I know this whole market is based on the trust you put in me and I don't take that lightly': Trust, Community and Discourse in Crypto-drug Markets, Discourse & Communication, pp 1-19 Abstract 'I know this whole market is based on the trust you put in me and I don't take that lightly': Trust, Community and Discourse in Crypto-drug Markets This study uses a Corpus Assisted Discourse Studies methodology to provide the first systematic analysis of how trust is discursively constructed in crypto-drug markets. The data come from two purpose-built corpora. One comprises all the forum messages posted on the flag-ship crypto-drug market Silk Road during the years in which it traded on the hidden-net (c. 250 million words). The other corpus comprises all the reports published by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) during the same period (c. 153 thousand words). Our analysis of trust focuses on the identities of those buying and selling drugs. The findings reveal that the Silk Road community members (i) regularly discussed vendors' identities alongside a continuum of trust-risk calculation, explicitly identifying both 'good' and 'bad' practice and hence engaging in self-regulatory discourse practices; and (ii) mainly constructed drug users' identities in relation to values of expertise, integrity and benevolence. The findings also suggest that hard law enforcement activity, such as crypto-drug market closure, may encourage technological innovation within these markets.. Moreover, our results show a disconnect between the discursive reality of the policy-making documents we examined and the very crypto-drug markets that they seek to legislate.

A Qualitative Evaluation of Two Different Law Enforcement Approaches on Dark Net Markets

“…A range of approaches have also been utilised including quantitative analysis [1], [5]- [7] and qualitative analysis [2]- [5], [7]- [9], and active [1], [7] and passive engagement [2]- [5], [8], [9]. The qualitative approaches to coding comments have included Grounded Theory [8], an adaptive coding system which is completely exhausted by the content [2], Corpus Assisted Discourse Studies (CADS) [4], imposing a prewritten taxonomy on content [5], [7], and Corpus Linguistics Assisted Discourse Analysis (CLADA) [9].…”

“…Other research explored th econcept of Trust on DNMs. Lorenzo-Dus and Di Cristofaro [4] used the forums of Silk Road and Silk Road 2.0 from Branwen's dataset and the CADS approach to identify key words associated both with the term "trust" and with key figures in the ecosystem. They use their findings to argue that the way vendors are discussed is polarising, i.e.…”

“…They use their findings to argue that the way vendors are discussed is polarising, i.e. that vendors are either described in extreme positive or extreme negative terms, and that contributors both appear to trust the forum with personal information and use personal information to gain trust from other contributors [4].…”

Drug cryptomarket futures: structure, function and evolution in response to law enforcement actions

“…Political discussions were popular on the original Silk Road's forum, with topics including free market libertarianism, anarcho-capitalism, counter-economics and agorism. Research suggests that libertarian discourse on cryptomarket discussion forums dropped significantly after the closure of Silk Road (Munksgaard and Demant, 2016), suggesting that the cryptomarket community may have become less interested in political activism in favour of practical and instrumental discussion topics aimed at effective and secure market trading (Lorenzo-Dus and Di Cristofaro, 2018). There is evidence that cryptomarket users became more security-conscious after the closure of Silk Road, and the PGP use for encrypted communications increased sub-Drug cryptomarket futures: response to law enforcement actions 361 stantially (Soska and Christin, 2015), having previously often been viewed as unnecessary and additional hassle (Aldridge and Askew, 2017).…”

Distrust in corporate communications: does it matter?

“…These definitions are indicative of management and marketing studies that treat trust as a behavioural intention and that is ultimately why trust is a concept of interest within these fields. Despite the different disciplinary lens, management and marketing definitions of trust are also featured heavily throughout the communication and public relations literature (Lorenzo-Dus and Cristofaro, 2018;Fuoli et al, 2017;Kodish, 2017;van der Merwe and Puth, 2014;Farrelly et al, 2003;Togna, 2003).…”